Night School: Legacy

It felt weird to go out without a row.

Weirder still was going back to the park where they used to hang out together every night to find Mark and Harry still swinging on the exercise bars in the dark like overgrown children.

‘You lot need to get a job,’ she said, striding through the gate.

‘Allie!’ they’d roared, running across the dark playground to her.

She was so happy to see them she couldn’t stop smiling. And they’d seemed thrilled to see her again – pounding her on the back and shoving a can of lukewarm cider into her hand. But once they’d settled down, the two boys on the swings and Allie perched at the top of the slide, the conversation lagged. All they talked about was skiving school, sneaking on to the railway lines to tag, nicking stuff from Foot Locker. The same things they always talked about.

Only now it seemed …

Boring.

Just two months had passed since she’d last seen them, but Allie felt like she’d aged years; so much had happened during the summer term at Cimmeria. She’d helped to save the school from fire. She’d nearly died. She’d found another student’s dead body.

Remembering that, she shivered.

She felt sure they wouldn’t understand if she tried to explain what Cimmeria was like. When they asked her about school she replied in vague terms: it was ‘kind of crazy’, but ‘pretty cool’.

‘Are all the people there, like, total toffs?’ Harry asked, crushing a cider can in his hand and throwing it into the park. Allie studied the can as it glinted amid the soft green leaves of grass.

‘Yeah, I guess,’ she said, still staring at the can.

But, she thought but didn’t say aloud, I really like them.

‘Do they treat you like the hired help?’ His voice sympathetic, Mark was trying to read her expression. She avoided his eyes.

‘Some do,’ Allie conceded, thinking of Katie Gilmore and her group. But by the end of the term, she and Katie had been working together to save the school from fire and they’d developed a grudging respect for one another. ‘But they’re not so bad,’ she finished.

‘I can’t imagine going to school with a bunch of toffs.’ Harry stood up on the swing’s seat and launched it into the darkness. His voice floated to them as he swung by. ‘I’d tell them where they could go and then get kicked out, I reckon.’

‘Like they’d let you in in the first place,’ Mark scoffed, shoving the chains of Harry’s swing until it gyrated sideways.

‘You going back?’ Mark asked, looking at her with sudden seriousness.

‘Yeah, my parents say I have to. And I kind of … want to, you know?’ She held his gaze, hoping he’d understand.

Mark’s background was different from her own – his dad wasn’t around and he lived with his mother in a tower block. His mum went out to nightclubs and bars with her friends – she didn’t act like a regular parent. After Allie’s brother Christopher ran away two years ago, Mark had been as much like a brother as anybody could be. She knew he’d missed her since she’d gone away to school. But the truth was, after the first couple of weeks at Cimmeria she hadn’t thought about him much at all.

‘I’ll write you letters,’ she promised now, guilt making her more fervent.

Mark’s sarcastic smile reminded her fleetingly of Carter.

‘Yeah?’ He popped open another can of cider and jumped up on to the swing. ‘I’ll write you notes on the Hammersmith and City line.’

He shoved off with his feet and arced out towards Harry, who was singing nonsense songs to himself as he swung.

Allie sat on the slide and watched them joke around – jerking at the swings as if they wanted to rip them from the metal frame. Her expression was thoughtful; the can of cider sat untouched next to her.

It was nearly midnight when Harry’s phone rang. After a brief conversation, he conferred with Mark before turning to Allie.

‘We’re gonna hit the bus depot in Brixton – give it a bit of work. You coming?’

After a pause Allie shook her head.

‘I promised the rentals I’d be home early,’ she said. ‘They’re still treating me like a criminal.’

Harry held out his fist and she butted her own against it. His bag rattled when he picked up.

‘Later, Sheridan,’ he said, heading out of the park. ‘Don’t let the posh bastards get to you.’

Mark lingered behind.

‘If you want to write those letters, Allie,’ he said after a long second, ‘that’d be cool.’

‘I will,’ she promised, determined to do it.